No. 2614

Turkey a la Stevens—Stuffed

Dinde Farcie a la Stevens

Fry one onion in two ounces of butter with four ounces of fresh mushrooms chopped up; season with salt, nutmeg, fine pepper, parsley, thyme and bay leaf; moisten with half a pint of white wine, and set it on a slow fire to let fall to a glaze, then dilute with very thick and well-reduced allemande sauce (No. 407), strained through a tammy and cooled off. Put this into the mortar gradually with the same amount of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), and with a spoon mix in some truffles and red beef tongue, cut in three-sixteenths of an inch squares, and pistachios. Bone the breast of young turkey, fill the empty space with the above dressing, truss it and wrap it up in several sheets of buttered paper, then put it to cook in an oval-shaped saucepan lined with bards of fat pork, and moisten to half its height with a mirepoix and white wine stock (No. 419); it requires fifteen minutes cooking for each pound of turkey when stuffed. Half an hour before serving untie the turkey and let it assume a fine color., then remove and lay it on a dish to cool off. With the stock prepare a jelly and use for making some small aspics of foies-gras (No. 2412), molded in timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137), and garnish around with them, placing them on chopped jelly and surround with jelly croutons, and stick on the top three or five hatelets; trim the drumsticks with favor frills (No. 10), then serve.

← No. 2613 Turbot a la Remoulade Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2615 Turkey in Daube a la Verneuil →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold buffet centerpiece from Delmonico's: a young turkey boned at the breast, packed with a mushroom-and-quenelle stuffing, braised in wine stock, then chilled and dressed in aspic. Most of the work is in the cross-references, which assume you have a kitchen brigade behind you.

Read the hinge firstEverything depends on the forcemeat being cold and stiff when it goes into the bird. The mushroom duxelles must be reduced to a glaze and the allemande reduced until it sets on a spoon, then both chilled before they meet the quenelle mixture. Warm or slack stuffing weeps during braising and the slices fall apart when cold.
The cross-referenced saucesAllemande (No. 407) is a velout e finished with egg yolk and cream and reduced hard; the chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) is pounded breast meat with panada and egg. In a modern kitchen both come together in a food processor rather than a mortar, but keep the bowl and blade cold. The mirepoix and white wine stock (No. 419) is a well-flavoured aromatic braising stock built on meat trimmings, vegetables and wine.
MeasuresHalf a pint of white wine is one US cup. Two ounces of butter is four tablespoons; four ounces of mushrooms is about a cup and a half chopped.
TammyA tammy was a worsted straining cloth, twisted between two people to force sauce through. A fine chinois or a doubled square of muslin over a sieve does the same job.
Bards of fat porkSheets of pork back fat lining the pan, to keep the meat from catching and to enrich the braise. Thinly sliced fatback or unsmoked streaky bacon is the substitute; smoked bacon will dominate the pale wine stock.
Timing and temperatureFifteen minutes per pound of stuffed weight is a fair guide for a gentle braise, but check with a probe: the centre of the stuffing, which contains raw poultry forcemeat, should reach 165F. The final half hour uncovered is for colour only.
The garnishHatelets are decorative skewers, purely ornamental and now largely obsolete; favor frills (No. 10) are the paper cuffs for the drumsticks. The foie gras aspics in timbale moulds can be replaced by small savoury jellies set in dariole moulds or espresso cups. Chopped jelly and jelly croutons are simply the set stock diced or cut into shapes.
ServingA cold dish for a buffet, carved in slices across the breast so the truffle, tongue and pistachio show in the cut. A turkey of eight to ten pounds stuffed will serve twelve to sixteen as part of a spread. Chill overnight before slicing.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where dishes were often named for the patrons who ordered or inspired them, so that the list of dishes à la such-and-such reads in places like a guest list of Gilded Age Manhattan. Who the Stevens of the title was is not stated; Ranhofer, as usual, offers no explanation, and any link to the hotel-keeping Stevens family or to the society hostess Marietta Stevens is speculation rather than established. The technique is pure grande cuisine of the period: a bird boned and reconstructed around a pale forcemeat studded with truffle, scarlet tongue and green pistachio so that each slice reads as a pattern, then set off with aspic and skewers. Cold work of this kind was a showpiece of the nineteenth-century buffet, judged as much on how it looked as on how it tasted, which is why this book carries a section devoted to garnishings for cold dishes.